Curbing Wall Street

I don't hate Jamie Dimon. He's smart and hard-working, and undoubtedly wants to believe that his work contributes to society. But his bank continues to harm millions of Americans, and his political activism is helping an entire industry pilfer and endanger the economy.

Now he's started to publicly express feelings of hurt and rejectedness, and therapists say such feelings may reflect a deep inner guilt. That would make sense. Fortunately, there's a way out, and we have a six-step program designed to heal Mr. Dimon's Inner Banker - and help save the economy. more »

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Former White House budget director Peter Orszag is taking a new approach in his quest to cut Social Security. He's playing progressive "good cop" to to the ultra-right bad cops of the White House deficit commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. more »

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I found a clip of yesterday's MSNBC appearance purely by accident. It had been posted by one of those automated advertising websites that scour the Internet for clips related to their product line, which in this case was - I kid you not - "Senior Dog Health Problems."

Is the universe trying to tell me something? more »

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Nancy Pelosi has just announced that she's running for the position of House Minority Leader. As a San Franciscan, maybe she understood that turning her leadership role over to the Blue Dogs would have been like giving the Giants franchise to Oakland. She's been the most effective Speaker in a generation and she'll be equally effective in the opposition. more »

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Last night's real winner wasn't a party or an ideology. The real winner was Wall Street. Once again the wealthy and powerful have applied the Shock Doctrine to US politics, using a financial crisis to increase their power. The Democratic Party tried to accommodate the Wall Street crowd for two years and failed. Now Democrats must decide whether to adopt a new, bold and coherent strategy, or keep listening to the same advice that got them here.

They may need to decide quickly. The Party's Usual Suspects are already out in force, making excuses for themselves and peddling the same shopworn "centrist" wares. The President used the words "responsible," "responsibly," or "responsibility" thirteen times in today's press conference. It's admirable when someone takes responsibility for their actions. That's an act that will hopefully include taking stock of what went wrong and trying something different. more »

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Perspective's hard to come by in the heat of the moment, but it's already clear that this week's election is profoundly important. The forces of small-"d" democracy are up against a cabal of ultra-powerful financiers who, in an unending quest for greater wealth and power, have drawn upon the ugliest impulses and most corrupt political forces in our society. This cabal and its allies make up a Coalition of the Billing, the Drilling, and of course the Killing - a nasty gang that's determined to seize control of our government at any cost. And they can afford it.

When it's finally viewed through the longer lens of history, this election may be remembered as a decisive battle - and we're on the front lines. more »

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The current debate over foreclosure fraud has been a revelation, even for those of us who have become familiar with the power of moneyed interests to influence the national dialog. Despite overwhelming evidence of widespread lawbreaking and deception, there's still a popular point of view that says that fraudulent foreclosures are "just a technicality" and that what we're seeing is neither a systemic problem nor a crime wave of epidemic proportions.

Actually, it's both. Here are four reasons why the foreclosure fraud scandal is very important. They're counterarguments to the conventional "paperwork" wisdom, a point of view whose numbing effects threaten to anesthetize us to the profound significance of this scandal. more »

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This morning's interview with Sonali Kolhatkar for KPFK's morning program, "Uprising," was worthwhile for me because Sonali was asking exactly the right questions: Where exactly did the "fraud" take place - during the foreclosure process, as these mortgages were being bundled and sold, or when the loans were initially issued?

The right answer in many cases is: "All of the above." more »

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GOP candidates are making a point of running against "bailouts" this year. Yet even as they rail about rescuing big banks, they're working on a plan that would slip those same banks an estimated $90 billion in taxpayer money ... and that's just in the first ten years.

"Fiscal conservatism," anyone?

It was always hypocritical to slam a bailout that they and their party initiated. But it turns out they were just warming up. Now they're trying to pull a fast one on the American public, tapping Tea Party rage about big government spending even as they prepare to slip the big bankers some big bucks. They're planning to siphon off $90 billion meant for America's college students and their families and give it to Wall Street.

Any Tea Partier who votes for these guys is being played for a sucker. more »

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At the center of the foreclosure fraud crisis lies something called "MERS," which is usually described in news reports as a computer system and database. But a thorough review of the company's publicly available documents show it's much more than that. We reviewed hundreds of pages of bulletins, newsletters, and manuals, along with PowerPoint presentations, user forums and other website material and several hours of training videos and other recordings. This is the first of a series of reports on what we found.

As the following images show, MERS is a nebulous, database-driven entity created by the mortgage industry . It's designed to let lenders swap mortgages electronically without being slowed down by inconvenient courtroom rules. MERS is "Digital Life" for mortgages, an electronic shell game that makes it hard to track the real party behind a loan.

The company's own publicly available documents paint the picture of a legal shapeshifter that appears before the court as the lender and title holder, then morphs itself into a mere service organization when it's time to take responsibility. more »

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